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Join us on May 22 with Michael Washington on Rockin' The Code World with dotNetDave - a weekly show to learn & live Q&A on .NET and other programming technologies.
AGENDA
• Introduction
• Prize Give-a-ways!
• The Interview: Michael Washington
• Blazor and Oqtane.org (DotNetNuke for Blazor).
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0:00
Thank you
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Thank you
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Thank you
1:29
Thank you
1:59
Hey, geeks. Welcome to another Rock in the Cold World with Donnet Dave. Dang, I took one week off
2:09
and I can't even talk. I'm glad you're here. And we have an exciting show coming up today
2:14
with Michael Washington and talking about Blazer. So I'm excited about this show
2:20
I had two weeks off, so ready to get back to it. So let's go to the slides
2:26
so again my guest today is michael washington i've known him for a long time he's an application
2:33
architect and we're going to be talking all things blazer unless we go off topic and you know i tend
2:39
to do that sometimes so um i'm glad you're here there's my email address and handles i hope you
2:46
will contact me if you have any questions or comments or you know who should be on the show
2:51
or if you want to be on the show, please email me and we'll get you on the show
2:59
So let's get to the slides so we can get to Michael as soon as possible
3:05
Hey, everybody, saying hi. I'm glad you're – I guess you're glad I'm back
3:11
You know, I was going to say, you know, I took my first trip in a year and a half last weekend
3:17
And I left my 10-mile bubble finally and went and took a trip in an actual airplane
3:25
And I had a really great time with some of my coworkers up in Northern California
3:31
And I had my first ever home-cooked Vietnamese meal, which was freaking awesome
3:36
But, you know, the rest of the world, a lot of places in the world, including India, are still dealing with this horrible COVID pandemic
3:45
India is still having a really bad time. Simon just told me they've ran out of vaccines
3:53
And so it's still not looking good in India. So, you know, last month I put out a challenge to all software engineers to either meet or beat my $100 challenge
4:06
So I'm challenging all software engineers not in India to donate at least 100 US dollars to this link to help with the COVID pandemic in India
4:17
I hope you'll do it. I'm really, really happy. One of my friends, Mads Torgensen, the architect of C Sharp, actually donated $250
4:27
So thanks, Mads. I'm really happy that you did that. And it shows that you care about, you know, people in India, my followers and my friends in India
4:39
I'm thinking about you, especially since, you know, we've already lost one C Sharp Corner MVP and we've lost other C Sharp Corner authors and people who just read C Sharp Corner
4:55
So, you know, this really, really, really makes me sad. And, you know, I'm way on the other side of the world
5:02
And, you know, all I can do is, you know, try to get people to support you guys and, you know, try to get through this
5:12
Because, you know, this is not a country to country issue. It's a world issue
5:17
And the world has to stamp this thing down. So, you know, let's keep working on it
5:25
So C Sharp Corner's got a bunch of conferences coming up. The one I'm hosting is June 18th, Code Quality and Performance and Performance Virtual Conference
5:37
It's on a Friday on June 18th. I hope you'll come. I'm working on the papers that have been submitted, which you still can submit till the end of the month
5:49
and I so far have, I'm not going to tell you who they are yet
5:54
but I have an amazing list of speakers that are going to be in this conference
6:00
and I am so excited to have some of these people, including some really, really knowledgeable people at Microsoft
6:07
that know everything about performance with .NET Core and .NET 5. So I hope you'll come to that conference
6:16
and the other conferences at C Sharp Corner. They all work out really well, and it's a great free resource that, you know, this site provides for you all
6:25
So please take advantage of it. As you know, as I've been saying on the show ever since it started, you know, I'm working on this cookbook called the Hello World Cookbook
6:39
where all 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Voice of SLUM NGO in India, which I visited in 2019
6:47
and you know, I'm going to have to be honest with you all. I've not gotten enough recipes in the
6:54
year and a half that I've been trying to do this project and the project's basically going to die
6:59
if I don't get your help. So I really, really need your help. I know in some parts of the country
7:05
things are getting better and I know you want to get back to your normal life, but you know
7:10
please take a few moments out and donate your food recipes to hello world cookbook.com
7:17
And here's a short little video of when we left the Voice of Slum in India in 2019
7:24
So today we visited Voice of Slum here in India and it actually very incredible the work that they are doing here with the children to teach them and to basically feed them and make sure
7:35
that they are healthy enough and then give them an education to get out of this slum
7:39
It's a really worthy cause and I urge anyone to donate and help. I agree and not only donate but I am truly inspired by the people who run this
7:52
You inspire me. I think Chandni and Dave, you guys have done an amazing job
7:59
And it just, you said, it's very emotional to hear these stories and how much work you guys have done
8:08
I wish you guys success and we will try to help you as much as we can. We're going to take your message and give it to the community
8:14
Thank you. you know and on top of that the voice of slum has been doing a lot of work um feeding um families
8:24
and children during this horrible pandemic in india if you follow them on facebook or even
8:31
linkedin you can see the work they're doing and i'm you know i'm so proud of those two people who
8:37
started the voice of slum because you know through more adversity than we ever deal with here in
8:44
America, you know, all they do is try to help other people in the slums. And, you know, there's
8:50
to me, there's no better thing you can do than that. So please, please help with this cookbook
8:58
And also, if you have some extra cash laying around, please donate to the Voice of Slum
9:04
They need school supplies for the kids and things like that. So I hope you'll do that. Thanks
9:09
you know this week you know i i've said this a few times in the last probably month or so that
9:19
i'm actually looking for a new uh job for the first time in uh over two years and um i you know
9:27
i don't know what's happened to uh you know recruiters and trying to find a new job these
9:32
days and even linkedin that it is a royal pain in my butt right now to uh try to find a new position
9:39
It's it's I never remember it being so difficult. So I mean, not not only am I having some pretty crappy interview stories happening, but even my friends are telling me even worse stories than mine that they're dealing with right now, trying to find a job in 2021 and dealing with these people that really don't seem to know what they want
10:07
And so my question to you guys is, would you like me to do a show or shows about interviewing
10:15
You know, I do have a whole book on this. And I know that I think every time I've been to India, I've spoken about this
10:23
But would you like me to do a show about it? Because, you know, this show is more about coding and, you know, things like that
10:29
But, you know, finding a job is an important skill to have, too, in this career
10:35
So I've got a couple of yeses already. So if you want me to do a show about interviewing, please say some, please make a comment in the chat. And if I get enough, then I'll do it. Otherwise, if I only have one yes, then I probably won't do it. So make sure you make a, you know, a comment in the chat or email me. There's my email address
10:56
Oh, and actually, if you have interviewing stories, good and bad, I'd like to hear from you because, you know, one of my ideas for the show is to have like a panel type show
11:08
And so I want to have some people who have recently looked for a job and been through interviews
11:14
So please zoom on me. All right. I'd like to bring on my guest
11:23
Michael Washington is an ASP.NET C Sharp programmer. He has extensive knowledge in process improvement, billing systems, and student information systems
11:33
He is a founder of AIHelpWebsite.com and BlazerHelpWebsite.com. He has a son, Zachary, and resides in Los Angeles
11:42
That's how I know him, with his wife, Valerie. Welcome, Michael. Hi
11:47
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks. I only screwed up your bio once
11:51
No, that's fine. I usually do worse than that. And I do want to add, I just, during your intro, I met your challenge
11:59
So I just donated $100. Thank you. I now, all the other developers out there who are, again, we're very blessed
12:09
So if you're like me and you're extremely blessed, yeah, please reach out because this is very serious
12:16
You know, I have coworkers who have family in India. And so every day I've been going through the emotional ups and downs as, you know, they get, you know, have to get the canisters for the air for their family, get them to the hospital, you know, finding ambulances
12:34
I mean, so many things that other parts of the world we just take for granted. So, you know, our family members, you know, they're going through a hard time right now
12:43
So hopefully we can all just, you know, reach out, help, you know, our family members in need
12:50
And because, yes, this is serious life or death. So I just hope that everyone else just reach out and just, you know, do what you can
12:59
So, yeah, thanks. You know, one thing I was talking to with my coworkers this weekend when I went to Northern California was, you know
13:06
one thing that, you know, it feels to me that made things worse in India that we kind of take for granted here
13:11
right, is, you know, we have an entire infrastructure to deliver food and medicine and
13:17
anything we want. Basically, we can get delivered right to our home and most everywhere in America
13:23
right? And they don't have that in India, right? If you need food, you have to go out
13:28
You know, if you need medicine, you have to go out into the COVID land, you know, there's no choice
13:33
you know. And so it's, you know, so we, you know, Americans being really happy with the
13:39
infrastructure we have, but then, you know, try to help out others in India too. I, you know
13:44
it sure makes my heart feel good when, you know, when I do help my friends in India or anywhere
13:49
else in the world, you know, when they're going through issues. So thanks. Thanks, Michael. That's
13:53
really great. And I hope more people follow suit with my challenge and I'm going to keep doing it
13:59
until things get better in India. So thanks. So let's talk about Blazor. So everybody
14:08
please make sure that you, you know, make, ask comments. I know a lot of people here are really
14:15
really interested in Blazor and that's why I'm having another Blazor guest on this year. And
14:21
I'll have more on this year too, probably even more coming up to the release in November. But
14:28
so let me ask you a question. I know someone in the chat's going to ask because they ask this
14:32
every time. So why should I put time into Blazor if Microsoft's just going to abandon it in a
14:37
couple of years. What's your comment to that? Because, you know, there's a lot of things in
14:43
Microsoft, like Light Switch, right? That you were really big into, right
14:47
Very big into Light Switch. Yeah, then it was gone one day. So here my honest answer Just all technology changes So nothing lasts forever period um even javascript um you know is obviously a language that been around for a long time but
15:06
this is not your grandfather's javascript you know i'm saying you know type script
15:11
is a completely different animal um and and a matter of fact the thing i do want us to touch on
15:18
is I was also very big in Angular. And I do want to touch upon why I feel Blazor is so important to me versus Angular
15:30
So I'm willing to dive into that. But just to stay on an answer to your question, the biggest thing is that the only reason
15:43
why Silverlight really went away, and I know some people disagree on this one
15:48
but Silverlight is a plugin was, you know, needed a plugin that was controlled by Microsoft
15:57
Blazor runs in two modes, WebAssembly and server-side Blazor. The WebAssembly version of Blazor is, in my opinion, a plugin
16:09
It is a plugin. I mean, come on. It's a web browser, something runs in, it's a plugin
16:14
but it's a plugin that is not controlled by Microsoft. it's an industry standard plugin
16:21
Therefore, that is honestly the real difference between WebAssembly Blazor and, say, Silverlight and Flash
16:33
Flash was, again, the same issue. It was a plugin controlled by Adobe, and that's why it went away
16:41
However, Blazor, like I said, does run in two modes, server-side Blazor and what we call client-side Blazor or WebAssembly
16:50
And the server-side Blazor is really just an updated version of ASP.NET web forms
16:59
MVC. It just doesn't have postbacks. That's the only difference. I'm telling you, it's .NET code
17:05
um so as you all know web forms and mbc they haven't gone anywhere okay so if you look at it
17:16
that way if you're a server-side blazer person like myself this is just you know mbc plus you
17:22
know the next version of mbc so there's that so it's not always have to separate blazer into two
17:28
things the web assembly client side and the server side they both use the same blazer language so
17:34
therefore we all call it one thing is blazer at one time they had two different names but because
17:39
the light you know the code blazer code is the same they put it all back under one umbrella they
17:43
call it blazer but we are always talking about two different things so therefore my answer to
17:48
your question which is i think directed to the client side blazer web assembly blazer the reason
17:55
why i feel that it won't go away like silverlight did or you know flash did is because the plugin
18:01
and it is a plugin is not controlled by Microsoft. It's controlled
18:05
It's an industry standard. And therefore I feel it will last longer, but it will not last forever
18:09
And if we have this conversation 10 years from now, we'll be talking about something else, Dave
18:13
Yeah. Well, hopefully I won't be programming 10 years from now, but maybe who knows
18:20
I think we will. Okay. We're going to make a date. Okay. 10 years from this date
18:24
Okay. We're you and me. Yeah. Everything changes, right? I think a lot of people have the, you know, I'm afraid to use it because Microsoft will abandon it in a couple of years kind of thing, which is Microsoft does
18:43
You know, there's lots of great things I could list off the top of my head that I wish was still around and Microsoft just abandoned for some reason
18:51
And some of it makes no sense to me, but, you know, I don't work there
18:55
But so, yeah, and it's and I think, you know, a lot of stuff I hear is, you know, well, Blazor is new, but it's but it's not really right
19:04
And JavaScript's been around forever. So I'm just going to use JavaScript, you know
19:09
And and like you pointed out, Blazor is really not anything new
19:13
It's just a package of some technologies that have been around that they call Blazor. Right
19:20
Yeah. And I think the original Blazer was actually written by somebody at Microsoft as like a..
19:30
Oh, yeah. Blazer was created... His own personal thing or something like that. Right. Blazer was created by Steve Sanderson
19:35
Yeah. And that kind of goes into another subject I want to just touch upon, which is after Silverlight and therefore Light Switch collapsed
19:46
um i got really involved with angular and typescript so i you know actually wrote some
19:55
books on the subject um did a lot of you know enterprise level applications um and um i used
20:05
a uh a thing called that was created by steve sanderson because steve sanderson also created
20:10
knockout one of the first javascript uh languages um and then you start working for microsoft
20:16
and he did the integration tools for running Angular with .NET backends and also React and all the other stuff
20:27
So he knew those JavaScript frameworks better than anybody. And he tried to make things easy
20:36
And I think it's because he saw the problems. And the problems that I feel
20:43
TypeScript is a great language. Great tool. JavaScript is obviously very useful, and we use a lot of JavaScript in Blazor
20:52
But the problem is NPM, Node Package Manager. Basically, that, you know, world is created by a bunch of little people
21:11
Not little people, but little small developers. you know, not big companies, but creating packages
21:19
Someone else uses that package in a bigger package. Someone uses that package in a bigger package
21:23
So to do a hello world in Angular, you literally download like 30,000 files
21:31
Or how about Node? Node, yeah, that's what I'm saying, yeah, Node. So the thing is, is that it's very brittle
21:38
Yeah. Very brittle, and you see all these warnings of, whoa, you need to replace this thing
21:42
But you can't replace this thing because this thing is built very so deep
21:46
So it's just brittle. You build your site one day and then tomorrow you build it again and it's like everything's broken
21:57
And the only way to fix it is you have to Google a bunch of Stack Overflow articles
22:02
I mean, the brittleness and just the fact that there's so many people
22:05
So there's no, basically Steve Sanderson, when he created Blazor, he basically created
22:12
a language and tools that act like Angular and all those sorts of things, you know, no
22:19
postbacks, everything's fast. It actually Blazor always using you know some sort of JavaScript rendering but he went back to the you know C sharp just write your your method you know you know minimal code easy to use easy to understand And also he brought back
22:38
the ability to have a component vendors to just give you a data grid that just works. You just
22:44
drop it in, you do data binding, like, like you would in NBC or web forms and everything just
22:49
works again. And he just basically, you know, took everything about the Angular world and just
22:56
put it back into the, you know, the .NET web world. And yeah, so I, when I saw it happening
23:04
I jumped on it. So I've been involved with it from the beginning, and I haven't looked back
23:10
And so that's why I just love talking about it. And if you haven't tried it, definitely try it
23:15
And hopefully I'll show you some stuff that I've been working on during this interview
23:21
Yeah. And you touched on something that I don't think a lot of Java happy companies realize is that there's a lot of .NET developers out there, right
23:31
.NET's been around for 20 years. There's a lot of us. And there's a lot of us, including me, that don't like JavaScript and never put a lot of time into being an expert, right
23:43
I mean, I barely knew enough to teach a little bit of it in an Ajax class a long time ago at a university
23:51
And so for me, as soon as I saw Blazor for the first time, I go, oh, my gosh, I could do websites again
24:02
Because now I don't have to learn that freaking JavaScript. But when I say that, everybody, you can still use JavaScript
24:10
Blazor doesn't prevent you from using JavaScript. It doesn't make you do JavaScript to do anything cool, you know, like a lot of other sites do
24:22
And when it renders to the page, it is using JavaScript. Yeah
24:26
It's just you don't have to write it. Right, right, right. And that was really some of the coolness, I think, behind the controls that came out in ASP.NET 2, right
24:39
is a lot of those controls that came out there were using JavaScript, was basically pre-genning JavaScript
24:45
that we didn't have to do, like the code validation controls and things like that
24:49
And so that to me was great because I didn't have to write JavaScript
24:53
to do that cool stuff, right? And so Blazor is just maybe sort of kind of the next evolution
24:58
and five or 10 years, we'll have something else, right? But yeah, so I think it's cool
25:05
I think there's a lot of great opportunities for .NET developers that have been shy, like myself
25:10
of doing anything UI anymore because of this crazy, you know, there's a new JavaScript library
25:16
I have to learn every freaking day, you know? And it's just, you know
25:21
or you were saying about those files, you know, I remember, you know, I was deleting like the bin folder
25:26
of, you know, one of the sites that use that. And all of a sudden I saw like 20,000 files being deleted
25:32
I'm going, what? But, you know, and there's a part of me that says that that has to slow things down with all that file I.O., right
25:41
It just has to. I mean, but I don't know. But the biggest issue is security
25:45
Yeah, that's true. You can't have that many vectors. And that's why, you know, if you ever, you know, I do a lot of, post a lot of stuff on GitHub
25:55
And GitHub will, you know, scan for vulnerabilities. these and i mean you're just you're going to get emails new you know vulnerabilities i'm telling
26:04
you like multiple emails a week and and you do the research and it's this component that's been
26:10
buried in and the and the person who wrote that component you know you know he or she they're not
26:16
even working on that project you haven't worked on that project in years so they're not going to
26:19
fix this thing and even if they did fix it it's just the brittleness is an issue the security
26:27
issues are an issue. We can't act like, you know, so when, you know, I'm designing applications
26:34
enterprise applications, and I am responsible to, you know, the security people of the enterprise
26:40
applications, and I can't honestly say that an Angular application that we deployed six months ago
26:48
does not have exploits right now. And to fix them, we'd have to remove entire components
26:59
because that's not okay. The nice thing about, like I said, a Blazor application is that the security
27:09
I know where we are on the security. I'm not putting in a thousand different components
27:15
from a thousand different places. you know, I may just use maybe one or two component vendors. That's it. The rest of it is just
27:22
you know, obviously Microsoft keeps on top of the Microsoft components and it's just a lot less
27:29
code and therefore a lot cheaper. So an Angular app, I mean, if we have like a simple, you know
27:36
I need to add a data grid with a screen for editing some data with two interrelated tables
27:42
So a child, you know, a parent child thing with Angular, the developer can be on this thing for three days because there's so many components and so many files and so many things, whatever
27:53
A Blazor developer, an experienced Blazor developer, I'm going to give that person like a couple of hours at the moment
28:02
You know, bringing a new developer up to speed. Basically, I give them a copy of my book
28:10
I, you know, give them about 10 websites, you know, where they have tutorials
28:16
Basically, I give them about a week. If you are a C Sharp developer, I can give you about a week
28:22
And now you are a competent Blazor developer. That's all it takes
28:26
Angular, I mean, weeks to months to get someone up to speed because they have to learn the node package manager and the dropping in the command line and this thing
28:35
oh, when you get this error, you have to go into this and pound this and dot, dot
28:41
So, yeah, I'm very big on the Blazor. Do you want to take some of the questions
28:49
Yeah, before we do, I know the first question I want to ask, but the one thing I want to point
28:54
out real quick is I'm really glad you brought up security because in the project I architected
29:01
of work. I actually architected that the front end would be Blazor, but that was changed behind
29:07
my back and they went with Node.js and Node and all that stuff. And oh my God, security is a
29:15
freaking nightmare. Trying to get Okta to work all the way through back end to the API and everything
29:23
it took us so long to get it to work. And beyond that, we were talking about controls and this is
29:29
the next question I want to ask is, you know, just doing anything simple grid took forever
29:37
You know, if I just could have gotten that company to pay a couple thousand dollars for
29:41
some controls, we would have been, we would have had that site done in a month and not six months
29:46
Right. And that's, you know, that's the beauty of controls and which I am a huge
29:51
always have been a huge proponent of. So, so speaking of controls, you know, someone asked
29:57
When can we get more components? I'm not really sure. what they're asking. I'm not sure if they're asking the components in ASP.NET or elsewhere
30:04
but what's your comment on that? Because you're more into the components of Blazor than I have
30:09
been so far. Yeah, the component vendors really got onto Blazor really big. So I've actually
30:15
written a couple of books for Syncfusion. So if you want to use Syncfusion controls
30:19
I actually have two books, one book using server-side Blazor, one using client-side Blazor
30:24
I even have another Syncfusion book that's in process where it's using Syncfusion with Octane, which is basically a .NET Nuke version of Blazor created by the same person, Sean Walker
30:45
And of course, all the other component vendors have Blazor components like Telerik
30:52
Grape City. Stav Express. So they all have it, and the components work the way they work, you know, like they work in MVC and Web Forms
31:06
And also, of course, Windows Forms and, of course, WPF also. So, like I said, I used the components, and, you know, I can show you some stuff later on
31:18
So the component story is really great. There's tons of components, many of them free
31:24
So I'm actually involved in an open source project where we actually give away a lot of components
31:31
So, for example, I wrote one component to do rich text editing
31:36
Oh, cool. So, yeah, there is a lot there. So if you're not able to find it, you need to increase your Google
31:47
You're Bing Googling because there's so much. You have to say Bing. No, I'm kidding
31:51
Yes, Bling, yes. But Blazord is the organization that I'm a part of
31:56
And Blazord gives away a lot of free components, of course, with full source code
32:02
They're very popular. I think we have over a million downloads for the entire suite
32:09
So there's a lot of stuff out there. And Jeff Fritz, that's a whole suite of controls he's written to
32:15
He was actually my first Blazor guest back in, I think, December. And so, yeah, so he's done it too
32:20
So there's a lot of people working on Blazor. And that's a sign that Blazor is not going away, right
32:25
That's not right. But there's a lot of companies and people working on it, including at Microsoft, right
32:30
Yep. That's a sign that's going to be around for long enough to put some time into it, right? Yes
32:37
Yeah, yeah. And some other questions there that they had. Yeah, so how about the one about is Blazor production ready
32:47
Yeah, for like C-Store Corner. Oh, very much so, very much so. And like I said, I've actually put it on some very large enterprise projects
32:54
And I also want to put in there that I, even though I've written some books and we will cover Blazor client, Blazor WebAssembly, I've, most of the majority of stuff I do, practically all the stuff I do is Blazor server
33:14
So people were questioning, oh, can Blazor server handle? Handles it great
33:21
Really fast. Really fast. And I am telling you, the only thing I would stress to people is host your Blazor application in Azure
33:35
There's something special about running it in Azure. And make sure you go into the properties of the Azure web app and you turn on WebSockets
33:43
If you do that, basically a $15 a month Azure website can take just hundreds of simultaneous users without a problem
33:57
And so all my enterprise applications were using Blazor Server. The two reasons why I use Blazor Server as my go-to is it's faster
34:09
you don't have to put so much security and orchestration around to protect your controller
34:19
methods because like an MVC app, it's all server-side. So it's less code, therefore it's
34:26
faster development. Debugging is easier. I just see a question in there. Basically, if you're using
34:31
server-side Blazor, debugging is easy. Just set the breakpoint and you go. So there's that
34:36
um and um also there's no slow startup time if you use blazer web assembly there can be a delay
34:43
for the person to download the client um so therefore the only times i really would use
34:46
blazer web assembly is if you had situations where people need to be off to have the app work
34:51
offline so for example mobile um uh so but if you don't have that situation like i said i just use
34:59
blazer server it just runs fast works great works on all browsers um they say all modern browsers
35:05
but at this point it's all browsers and it just works great
35:09
So I just can't say enough about that. So can you, can you do a blazer as a static site
35:17
I would assume you can. Oh yeah. They actually just, you mean like using Azure statics website
35:24
So in that case you're, you'd be using the blazer web assembly
35:28
And they just recently released a new template. I don't have the link of maybe Simon can find it
35:35
but there's like a new template that they put into the beta version of Visual Studio so that you can easily deploy your Blazor WebAssembly site to Azure Static websites
35:50
So again, I think those are like free at this point. Because I think like GitHub has a thing where if you have an Azure Static website in your GitHub, it will automatically deploy or something like that
36:03
So but again, like I said, because I don't do much that much with WebAssembly, I'm not the person, you know
36:12
Yeah. There's others who are more of an expert in that. And you're right. You know, I at this point, just for me, just the security hassle alone, I don't want to use WebAssembly, you know
36:22
And and you're you know, and I've been telling people pretty much the same thing you have, you know, unless you need offline capabilities or maybe you need access to, you know, services on the machine that you just can't get
36:33
get through the server-side piece, then that would be a reason to use the client-side piece
36:40
But other than that, I would stick with the server-side at this point. But even the WebAssembly would be sandboxed
36:45
So there actually would not be anything on the machine that you can get to that the Blazor
36:51
server-side would not be able to get to. Whereas the Blazor server-side can actually then, it can get to things on the machine
36:58
For example, some of the AI stuff components had to have a higher level of access so that a lot of my initial AI stuff with Blazor had to be server-side
37:16
They re some stuff so that you can now do some of the stuff components with Blazor WebAssembly but you sometimes run into those situations So again Blazor server is the one that wins every time except for the fact that if you do need offline capabilities then you must at that point use blazer web assembly
37:35
Right. And how many offline web apps have anybody seen? Right. I know that's the thing. Yeah. But when I do see people doing a normal site, for example
37:46
like a normal blog site or something like that, and they go immediately to blazer web assembly
37:50
thinking that, well, it's going to be, I'm offloading the resources to the end user
37:58
I'm telling you, I'm like, yeah, but if you can run hundreds of simultaneous people on a $15
38:03
Azure website, what are you, why are you doing this? But again, it's, they both work and I just
38:11
favor one over the other, but that's just an opinion. It's not fact
38:15
Yeah. Yeah. So before we run out of time, let's talk about Octane
38:20
Okay, yeah. Actually, let me go ahead and let me try to do a screen share here. This world all goes wrong, folks
38:31
It's live. It's live, yeah. Okay, so I'm going to share my screen
38:38
And it's free. What do you expect? Yeah, exactly. So do you see my Octane screen here? Yep
38:44
Okay, so if you're familiar with .NETNuke.com. Could you maximize it? Oh, sure
38:50
So we can feel a little bit better? Sorry. There you go. If you're familiar with .NETNuke.com, it was created, basically it was a .NET Web Forms app created by Sean Walker
39:02
And it was just basically a way for people to have, it's really not a CMS content management system, but it does have those kind of abilities where, you know, you can move things around here
39:18
I can, let's see where, oh, yeah. Oops, sorry. Like I can edit text here, you know. So, you know, you kind of have this thing here. You can install, you know, upload files, file management. You can go into the admin dashboard. They do a lot of things, page management, user management, profile management
39:44
Basically, you get everything out of the box and you can easily install it using a wizard
39:50
Watch out WordPress. Yeah, exactly. So while it's not considered a content management system because it doesn't have a lot of the sophisticated things that a true content management system has, it does have quite a bit
40:07
So, so again, you know, so the reason why I've been very involved with this is this runs in Blazor and it does run in, in a service side Blazor or client side Blazor
40:22
So that's, so, you know, this one doesn't get involved in the, you know, uh, that thing there
40:29
And, um, for example, I created this, um, module survey module and this right here is using components
40:36
So this is using a Radzen. So Radzen has, you know, all these nice components for, you know, showing the charts and stuff
40:46
Radzen also has, you know, controls like this. So this multi-select control, this is a Radzen control
40:52
These are Radzen buttons. Those are all free, I assume, right? Yeah, Radzen's free
40:57
So again, you know, perfect example of the components and stuff. And there you go here
41:04
A book that I'm working on for Syncfusion is showing how Syncfusion can be used in Octane
41:13
So this right here is this help desk thing. And again, these are using the Syncfusion controls
41:21
Yeah, there we go. See, so the calendar controls and all that
41:25
And again, the code looks pretty much like, you know, the .NET, you know, MVC of the controls work, you know, with the data binding and that sort of thing
41:38
So this is where I've been concentrating a lot of my work
41:45
And the reason why is because this is taking you to the Octane site
41:52
There's quite a few people, you know, 887 stars here, 246 forks, a lot of people that are contributing to it
42:02
I've actually contributed even to the core because there's this deploy to Azure button, which works most of the time
42:11
Because what happens, it works fine when I first put it out and then Azure keeps changing things
42:15
So theoretically, you can just come to Octane, click this deploy to Azure and button and it would walk you through stuff
42:24
I do a lot of on my Blazor help website dot com
42:28
If you go to Octane, you see I have quite a few articles on showing you how to do custom distribution using site templates
42:39
This one's kind of cool because what you can do is you can actually have a custom site template where a person can install Octane and it installs your modules and basically has your logo
42:58
So you can have something where people don't even know it's an Octane site because it loads up
43:07
You can replace the Octane logo with your logo. Your modules will show up
43:12
Your stuff shows up. So you can kind of use like a white label sort of situation with Octane
43:19
Again, everything is free. Everything is open source. This is actually part of the .NET Foundation
43:24
It's actually owned. The ownership of the code is by the .NET Foundation, so you don't have to worry about some private company taking it over
43:32
Um, so I've been spending a lot of my, my time and effort, um, promoting Octane because it's
43:39
Blazor, but it allows a developer to just write their, you know, module piece and then Octane
43:47
will take care of the rest. Yeah. Um, and the final thing I'll talk about as one of the, uh, touch on real quick is creating
43:53
an Octane module is really easy because they have this Octane module creator
43:58
And basically what happens is that you go here and you say, go to module creator
44:07
You basically put the name of your module. You click this button, and it will actually create a Visual Studio project as your starter project
44:20
So I'm actually creates a bunch of code for you. And then you can just go in and then start editing the code
44:26
And there you are. So, yeah, this is it where it creates the thing
44:31
And Octane modules are actually distributed using NuGet. So you could either manually upload a NuGet package, or when you come into module management
44:43
and you say install a module, it actually scans NuGet to see where the latest modules are
44:49
And you can just click a button to download it and update things
44:54
So it really easy to use and this is something I been spending a lot of my time on doing
45:06
That's great. Sorry, I was reading the comments and listening to you. I mean, that's what I'm going to use in my next Blazor project, for sure
45:14
You know, that gets me a lot further than the Visual Studio template does
45:18
That's for sure. Oh, the question I wanted to ask was, what is the data store used behind the scenes
45:22
Oh, for Octane, currently it's SQL Server. However, the latest version, they're using Entity Framework for the installs, which, again, opens it up to supporting any data store that Entity Framework does
45:43
Any Framework supports, yeah. So I think the future plans is definitely the immediate future plans is to support multiple data sources
45:55
So that actually may work because they did a release about a month ago
45:58
I mostly concentrate on the module development, not the core stuff. So reaching out to on that Octane GitHub site, there's a discussion board
46:08
That's where a person can post their questions. and usually Sean Walker or one of the other core team members will answer to tell you exactly what's going on with that multi data support
46:19
But I know that it's definitely on the roadmap and they may have already achieved it
46:24
So if that's important to you, then reach out to them for that
46:29
Yeah. So one of the questions someone asked, which I think is interesting, is the is Microsoft contributing to back to the WebAssembly
46:38
Oh, they've done quite a bit. they of course want to get WebAssembly to be as small as possible and also as fast as possible
46:48
so that the WebAssembly story, you know, is the best it can be
46:53
So yeah, so Microsoft has, you know, they're deep into, you know, that and contributing to it
47:01
and really fostering the growth of that. So WebAssembly has a lot to thank Microsoft because, yeah, Microsoft's totally committed to it
47:12
And again, someone who's more in touch with it can give better details
47:17
But I do know from just following, you know, Dan Roth is the program manager
47:22
Yeah, I know Dan. And so I've seen him tweeting and blogging about this
47:26
So I definitely know that they're doing work on that. And even Steve Sanderson, God, it was over a year ago
47:34
Time flies over COVID. So it's almost two years ago. He was blogging and tweeting about how, you know, yeah, we're in the lab and we're, you know, doing some improvements
47:46
And, of course, Microsoft's been, you know, they've been pushing back, you know, releasing their code and contributing to the industry standard stuff
47:55
So no, I would say the answer to the question is Microsoft is doing quite a bit to move WebAssembly forward
48:06
Yeah, great. You've been getting a lot of great comments. I'm really impressed
48:11
Everybody's loving this show for sure. Yeah, and you're getting some great comments about your e-book
48:18
But there's one comment I'm not, maybe you understand this more than I do. Someone asked, did they move to Discord slash Slack
48:25
I'm not sure what she means by that. Oh. Hmm. Did the move to..
48:36
Yeah, can you explain a little bit more your question? Because I certainly don't understand it
48:43
I do know that Octane was on... It wasn't Discord or Slack
48:51
but they moved their primary chat to the discussion page on their GitHub site
48:59
So that might be talking about that. Oh, the communications channel. But if this is regarding Octane
49:06
then please go to the discussions page on the GitHub site for Octane
49:17
Oh, okay. Yeah. I hope that answers your question. I think that, yeah, hopefully
49:20
Otherwise, yeah, please clarify. So I can't believe it, but yeah, someone said 45 minutes is up already
49:28
And I agree. I can't believe we're almost out of time. Is there anything else you want to talk about quickly before we go
49:40
.NET Nuke? Or no, Octane is .NET Nuke for... Yes, right. Yeah
49:45
Okay, never mind. I really shouldn't say it that way, but, you know, just being..
49:49
Basically, BlazorHelpWebsite.com is the place to see what I'm working on. It is the place to get to all the GitHub projects, Blazor GitHub projects that I'm working on
50:03
And hopefully in the coming weeks, in addition to the Octane articles I've been doing
50:12
I hope to try to get Azure Communication Services to work with Blazor
50:19
And the irony of this is that currently the SDK for doing voice video, like we're doing here, requires a JavaScript SDK, and you have to use Node
50:35
So today, I'm going to have to add Node to a project because it's the only way for me to, yeah, it really sucks
50:43
whereas for example I did integration with Power BI and with Power BI you just reference the Power
50:53
BI JavaScript file but then the rest of your code is Blazor C sharp and that works fine but that the
50:58
you know and they may change things in the future but right now you have to use node and I do want
51:04
to get you know real-time video in a Blazor app so so anyway check my check out my blog in a
51:12
blazer help website in the next couple of weeks and hopefully i'll have something that i'll be
51:15
releasing and everything i do is on github and totally free so yeah um uh see so uh so the last
51:26
few questions i definitely want you back maybe even before uh donna six comes out because this
51:32
is everybody's been loving the show and i've learned a lot too uh on this show like i didn't
51:37
really know what octane was uh before and but sometimes i purposely don't look up things that
51:42
my guys talk about so i can be so i can learn too you know um but you know so what do you do for fun
51:50
besides raising a kid and being married um i really do program for fun um it's uh you know
51:59
it's fun it's just the creation it's also working with other people um you know you put up a github
52:05
project and then you're communicating with people on the other side of the world and and you know
52:09
you're discussing ideas you know it's fun so i actually do program for fun um and and then i just
52:18
give it all away and because you give it away and see if people use it and so yeah i'm a total geek
52:24
yeah i still code for fun too you know you know i kind of wish i was coding for fun all the time uh but I have a job I have to pay bills like I have a job and I have to pay bills yep
52:35
you know I listen to audiobooks I like to listen to audiobooks uh you know I like to jog and listen
52:41
to audiobooks while I jog um and um like an audiobook I recently listened to uh Rachel Maddow
52:48
has a book called Blowout which is about the industry uh the energy industry and you would
52:54
think that's the most boring thing the book is laugh out loud funny in her delivery yeah because
52:59
the way she delivers it and the whole thing i'm telling you it's like it opens your eyes to so
53:04
much you're like that's how the world the world works so so that's the other thing i do i really
53:09
like her she's one of the newscasts i watch every evening me too every every evening so so yeah but
53:15
the book our audio book blowout is incredible um so i'll have to yeah i'm gonna have to get it now
53:21
and listen to it while I'm working. I recommend it highly. And she recently won an Emmy Award for her performance
53:29
Yeah, I know a lot of people don't like news, 24-hour news channels, and I'm with you
53:37
But, you know, Rachel Maddow is like the only person that I've watched that it sounds like she's hanging out
53:44
with a bar, in a bar with you, just chatting with you like you're anybody else, you know
53:50
and uh you know it's it's really interesting to listen to her especially when she goes on her 25
53:56
minute yep you know monologues in the beginning of this whatever she's passionate about there's a
54:02
lot of passionate developers out there like myself and michael and she's very passionate about the
54:07
news and and uh stuff especially the stuff that she had to uh go through with covid with her
54:13
partner and yeah and all that stuff and and her being scared and you know saying that on the on
54:18
the show. Just because you're a newscaster doesn't mean you don't have feelings. That was great
54:26
It's been awesome having you on the show. I definitely want to have you come back. The one thing I do want to say real quick is no one from the Los Angeles area has asked me to come
54:35
speak at the user group in years. Can you put a bug in somebody's ear and say, I'm just sitting
54:41
down here doing nothing. You guys aren't asking me to come speak. When they start up again
54:46
because as you all know, we were on the way. Even virtually, I'll do virtual at this point
54:53
I just want to speak anywhere. I am. Again, also me too
54:58
That's why I'm so glad you had me. Thank you for having me. I haven't seen you in a long time either
55:04
It's great to catch up with you. You're looking great and smiling and happy
55:11
I'm glad everything's going great for you and your family. You didn't get sick
55:16
And I'm all vaccinated and the whole nine yards and yep. Yeah
55:21
Okay. Well, thank you. And I'll have you on soon. I hope. Okay
55:27
That was a great episode and lots of great comments. I'm glad you liked that
55:32
And, uh, you know, if you guys have other speakers, you want me to invite on the show
55:36
Um, you know, people you follow on Twitter, things like that, drop me a line and I'll
55:40
invite them. I'll invite anybody, you know, uh, so far I've tried to get Scott Hanselman
55:46
that doesn't seem to be working out, but you know, maybe he's got goo someday. That would be awesome. I'm still trying
55:53
So anyway, thanks a lot, Michael. That was a great show. I learned some stuff, which I'm always really
55:59
really interested in learning something new. The world is this, our world is changes so quickly. I just can't keep up anymore. So it's
56:07
you know, it's great to have experts like Michael on to come on and talk about stuff
56:13
like blazer. Right. So. So someone just asked about CodeRush. There it is
56:19
So everybody wins a copy of CodeRush, my favorite refactoring tool ever since Visual Studio was invented
56:27
And actually Visual Studio just announced a feature that's either in or coming in Visual Studio
56:34
that DevExpress has had for many, many years. So check it out
56:38
It's free. It's a free real copy of CodeRush. It's not crippled or anything like that
56:45
And so I hope you'll go check it out. Like I said, I use it every day that I code
56:50
and it makes me a more productive developer. All right, new code rules
56:59
This is my new section that I've done and I'm gonna try to keep doing
57:03
as long as I can come up with ideas. And most of these new code rules
57:10
are things that I'm currently experiencing or maybe something I've experienced that my friends are experiencing
57:17
This is all of that and maybe more. And maybe we can do a whole show about this
57:22
or maybe Mahesh can do this show on his growth and mindset show
57:27
But here it is for this week. Companies that don't trust their employees is freaking frustrating
57:34
and is a huge impediment to productivity. You know, I've seen this trend for a while now in software engineering
57:42
And maybe this is happening in other careers too, but I really have been feeling it
57:48
You know, I didn't feel like this when I started programming, you know, full-time 27 years ago
57:55
But now it just seems like there's no company out there that trusts their employees anymore
57:59
Now, I know that's not true. I know there are some companies out there, but it seems to me, at least the majority of companies that I deal with or people tell me about, just flat out don't trust their employees
58:11
And, you know, as an employee and as somebody who, you know, runs his own, you know, has been running his own things for a long time now, I just don't understand it, you know
58:21
And I'll say a little bit at the very end about that at the very end of this. But, you know, it's really hard to work for companies that don't trust you, flat out don't trust you right from the get go
58:33
And including companies that just continuously make it worse. I'm going to give you some examples
58:40
So micromanagers, you know, one trait of a micromanager is that they don't trust their employees
58:48
And so they have to constantly be on top of them, micromanaging every freaking thing they
58:53
do, making the employee prove every single second they, you know, spend on what each day
59:00
They don't listen. They're really just out for making themselves look better to the people above them
59:06
And, you know, this is one of the places where the mistrust starts to me is managers and micromanagers, just dad managers, you know, really to me
59:19
You know, not letting people work remote. I know a big reason before the pandemic that a lot of companies, including the one I'm currently working for, don't trust their employees enough to let them work remote
59:32
And so I'm hoping that, you know, the pandemic has been showing companies that, you know
59:39
this is not true in most cases. Unfortunately, I see a lot of companies
59:44
already sliding back into making people come back in now, which again, I don't understand
59:51
So, you know, if you don't trust your workers to work remote
59:56
maybe you need new workers or new managers, you know. I'm sure what the solution to that is
1:00:02
You know, I worked at one company that every year they asked me to sign a document saying that I didn't commit a felony in the last year
1:00:11
And those of you who don't live in America, a felony is a criminal act that you can be charged with
1:00:20
And if you have a felony, it's really, really hard to get a job in America if you have a felony, especially jobs like I have
1:00:29
you can't get if you have a felony. But why do you ask me every year
1:00:33
Do you really not trust me? Come on, you know? And, you know, and so here's some impediments to work
1:00:42
that just recently happened to me. We talked about Octa tokens, you know
1:00:47
They give us Octa tokens to debug stuff that lasts 30 seconds
1:00:52
Do you know any debugging session that lasts under 30 seconds? Uh-uh, you know
1:00:58
So, come on. Read only access to AWS console? Yes, people. I want to do a whole nother show on this, but where I work, we've been begging for access to the AWS console for well over two years, and we still don't have access to anything but read things
1:01:20
I can't do anything on AWS, including executing microservices. And the reason is they don't trust us
1:01:29
They think we're going to do something that's going to charge a lot of money to the company
1:01:39
More impediments to work, constantly logging into Okta during the day. And even some systems I logged into Okta go to another system that's controlled by Okta
1:01:49
and I have to log in again, literally 10 seconds later. You know the amount of times we have to log into Okta a day is just horribly frustrating And it is an impediment to work And some systems don work together
1:02:04
I just said that with the logins and stuff. You know, where I currently work, they put your user folder on a network drive
1:02:17
I'm assuming so they can see what you're doing. I know it's part of a backup, but I'm sure they want to see
1:02:22
what things you're storing in there also. But the problem that I discovered
1:02:27
and why I refuse to use their laptops is Visual Studio uses that user folder
1:02:33
for caching and stuff like that. And when you put that user folder on a network drive
1:02:38
Visual Studio turns into a nightmare. Visual Studio is already slow enough
1:02:42
But when you put that stuff on a network drive, my teammates at work
1:02:47
Visual Studio crosses throughout the day. And there's one project at work
1:02:51
they can't even load because Visual Studio will crash just loading it
1:02:56
Right. Okay. And blocking external websites like my coworkers at work now can't even go to Gmail to check an order status or to maybe update something or to contact their school for some reason about something about their kids
1:03:12
They can't even do that now. They've locked everything down so much. And they just keep continuing locking everything down to the point where we just it is so hard to get work done there
1:03:24
I really don't understand what they're doing. But, you know, for me, trust is important in any relationship
1:03:32
I don't care if it's your wife or husband or girlfriend or boyfriend or friend or family member or manager or company at a CEO, you know, the CEO of the company
1:03:45
Every, you have to believe in trust and wanna be surrounded by people who trust you And companies are just making this so toxic that no one wants to work there And when no one wants to work there guess what happens Everybody leaves And that what happening where I work now
1:04:07
And that's a problem because all of a sudden, we've lost a huge brain trust in just a couple weeks, a couple months
1:04:17
And I just don't get it. You know, companies need to explain this for me, to me and companies
1:04:25
And you wonder why we don't trust you because you don't trust us
1:04:31
You know, companies, things have to come from the top down. Right
1:04:35
And if you don't trust your employees, maybe you have the wrong employees or maybe you have the wrong culture at your company
1:04:44
Right. You know, maybe look at inward a bit and, you know, see where this mistrust is coming from and fix it
1:04:52
You'll have happier employees. You'll have happier customers and you'll retain your employees. Right
1:05:00
It's a no brainer, people. All right. Sorry, I went off way on the deep end on that one. But as you can see, I have a lot of passion around that
1:05:09
so don't forget to tune into the show next week, next Saturday
1:05:14
we'll have a guest on, I'm working on that right now I'm sure it'll be another awesome guest
1:05:18
just like Michael like I've talked already the pandemic is still going pretty bad
1:05:24
it's still not great in America but it's going worse than like in India
1:05:30
and one thing you can do even if you can't afford donating money, you can
1:05:36
afford donating blood It's free, it's easy, and it really makes you feel good that you've helped other people
1:05:43
I donate every month, and you can do it too unless you have some medical reason
1:05:48
I really want to hear your comments, suggestions for the show. I yet to get an email for comments and so I hope somebody will write me a comment Even David full of energy that would make me feel happy All right So thanks for watching I had a really great time
1:06:05
I'm glad I went on vacation and came back and have some renewed energy
1:06:09
because I'm looking for a new job and I need it. All right. See you next week. Thanks
1:06:23
Thank you
1:06:53
Thank you
1:07:23
Thank you
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